Scientists will monitor Oscars for signs of humor

The Borowitz Report ^ | 03/23/2002 | Andy Borowitz

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

SCIENTISTS WILL MONITOR OSCARS FOR SIGNS OF HUMOR

Barely Detectable Traces of Funny Material May Appear, Scientific Renegades Claim

This Sunday’s Oscar telecast will add more fuel to an already heated scientific debate, with some scientists determined to prove that “slight, barely detectable traces of humor” can exist in an awards ceremony that the scientific community has long considered entirely humor-free.

For decades, scientists have successfully proved that it is impossible for genuinely funny jokes, comedy routines, or “banter” to survive in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ tedious, overlong telecast.

But in recent years, a group of renegade scientists from the University of Minnesota have attempted to prove that, given the proper conditions, barely noticeable atoms of humor may appear, however fleetingly, in the Oscar show.

Sophisticated listening devices set up in various locations around the world monitored last year’s Oscar ceremonies, the Minnesota team says, and successfully picked up an interval of humor measuring several nanoseconds long in Julia Roberts’ Best Actress acceptance speech.

The scientific establishment, however, strongly challenges those findings, saying that the humor in Ms. Roberts’ moronic speech was entirely unintentional and therefore did not count.

Furthermore, the scientists says, the Academy’s cadre of overpaid, unfunny hack comedy writers have created an environment in which it is “virtually impossible” for humor to survive.

The two sides, while agreeing on little in the ongoing debate, have found common ground on one issue, however.

“Everyone agrees that there will be no humor, not even trace amounts, in Whoopi Goldberg’s monologue,” one scientist said.

[Dallas]

Cost of Laughing Rises 2.9 Percent in Last Year
Fri Mar 22, 8:17 AM ET

By Ellen Freilich

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of chuckles, giggles, guffaws and outright hilarity rose 2.9 percent over the last 12 months, according to the tongue-in-cheek Cost of Laughing Index for 2002.

Malcolm Kushner, the attorney turned humor consultant who developed the Index, found the rise in the cost of laughter during a recession perplexing.

Was scarcity a factor? Did the demand for laughs outstrip supply in a time of war?

Though not included in the index, Andersen, the accounting firm that is facing criminal charges in connection with the collapse of energy trading giant Enron, found the year to be humor-free.

But the price of jokes at Andersen's expense, notably by late-night television comics, has proved costly. On Wednesday, Andersen published a full-page ad in The New York Times -- at a likely cost of $137,000 -- to acknowledge the "tough place" it found itself in, while confessing that it was unable to find "the humor" in its situation.

The government's Consumer Price Index (news - web sites) rose 1.1 percent over the comparable 12-month period. So the cost of jokes rose at a stronger pace than consumer prices for food, clothing and other goods.

While the survey didn't specify whether the quality of jokes had improved along with the price, one of America's leading humorists said his jokes had become a better value.

One of the hottest books just off the humor presses, Calvin Trillin's "Tepper Isn't Going Out," a novel exploring the connection between a man and his parking space, is priced at $22.95, up nearly 15 percent from the price of Trillin's previous book, "Family Man," published in 1998.

But Trillin says there is more to this ostensible price increase than meets the eye.

"I want to say that this new book -- a bargain at $22.95 -- has more jokes in it than the last book," the Kansas-born author and long-time New Yorker writer told Reuters. "So this book, I would say, is actually cheaper than the last book. It depends how you measure."